My ex has moved in 500 yards away

DEAR BEL

IN LAST week’s column your words ‘if people seem on top of the world remember they may in fact be feeling the weight of the whole globe crushing their spirits’ jumped out of the page at me. I have been putting on a brave face for the past nine years and everyone thinks I’m fine.

My husband and I were married for 32 years. We ran a business and had two sons. It was hard and I was promised a better future when the firm was sold in 2006. We moved back to our home county and had lovely holidays.

Then, in 2012, he packed his bags (I was at work) and left to live with a colleague. But he insisted I was still his ‘first choice’ and said he’d be coming back because he’d made a big mistake.’

We divorced four years later after he made ‘another big mistake’ when he bought a house with her three miles away. I stayed in our home. However, six months ago they sold their house and bought one 500 yards from mine.

My question is what kind of woman can tear another’s life apart then move so close? What kind of man, knowing he broke his wife’s heart, can come back to live so near the home they once shared? IRIS

THE direct answer to your final questions — so well-expressed but full of anger and heartbreak — is: ‘Any sort of man and any sort of woman.’ I’ve long ceased to be surprised at the hurt people inflict on one another, while giving an appearance of kindness and thoughtfulness to the rest of the world.

A man I respected and liked ended his 40-year marriage in an email, then lied through his teeth for months, denying another woman.

He then caused his shocked wife untold additional stress and pain by driving a viciously hard bargain over their assets. But a good man, a responsible man, a pillar of society . . . and so on.

What made him act in such a cruel way? Why, love . . . of course.

He wanted a new marriage with a much younger woman — and got it. And your husband went on lying after he left, holding out false hope that he’d one day return. Perhaps he was in denial, but it added insult to injury.

I’m afraid people behave in this way when they know they have done something hurtful and ‘wrong’ and turn their back on that self-awareness. In the end, they put their own happiness first.

It’s just awful for you that they have chosen to move so near — a fresh, harsh, selfish blow you do not deserve. To me, it’s inconceivable that they’d want to, but there’s no end to people’s capacity to shock. What can you do but go on being brave?

In your uncut email, you tell me you have been promoted in a very good job and you do sound remarkably composed, in spite of the pain. Let your independence and friendships focus your mind. Let that couple witness you living your best life.